


As All Things Must

by taichara



Category: Rockman Zero | Mega Man Zero
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-01
Updated: 2016-09-01
Packaged: 2018-08-12 08:41:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7928176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taichara/pseuds/taichara
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>X waits; but it's not long now ...</p>
            </blockquote>





	As All Things Must

**Author's Note:**

> _prompt:_ "any post-apocalyptic setting; the world is changed but not destroyed"

It was night. The dead of night, and yet the sky above was lit with the fires of dawn; a false dawn, born from a madman's technological horrors and the collapse of the last station in orbit high above the shattered Earth.

Below the wrath unfolding in heaven, Neo-Arcadia was burning.

Its people had fled hours ago; the last directive his Daevas -- his children -- had issued before the apocalypse struck. Fleeing into the wastes, towards that last refuge that was "Area Zero", the one place where green life was growing back under its own power. The one place that could harbour the last remnants of humanity, and reploid-kind, beyond that madman's reach.

The irony of that place, of all places, being one of safety was not lost on him.

X fluttered around the megaopolis' crumbling towers like a dying firefly. No strength for a full manifestation, even less for a tangible shell; only a flickering, fluttering pulse, sometimes witchfire green, mostly fathomless azure, that shivered and sparked when the flames licked too close. 

But he could not find rest until he bore witness to the end of this last, most final of wars.

There were no signs of his children. Perhaps they'd fallen to the enemy. Perhaps they had ended themselves in grief, or madness, or guilt, or helpless fury, as Phantom had done. The thought pained him, but only dimly; poor broken dear ones, rest was perhaps the only answer for them now. Phantom had seemed at peace, when last they'd spoken, after all ...

The heavens roared, spitting sparks and fire like shooting stars across the false dawn, and his attention shifted from his fallen utopia to the skies and the battle raging unseen there. X had no illusions concerning Zero. This would be his end, one way or the other, history repeating itself in cruel mockery of their sacrifices a century, a lifetime ago.

The thought pleased him and he couldn't muster guilt over it. Zero was already changed so much, had lost so much. Even his own rest -- his own surrender -- had been torn away from him, and now he fought a madman he could not even remember condemning.

No, it was time to go. Once the battle was ended, it was time to go. 

Time to rest. 

Rest, and let loose the death-grip that they -- that _he_ \-- had held on the world for so very, very long.

_You must follow your own paths now._

_If only I had seen that before._

_Forgive me._


End file.
